


the azure rising deep

by kimaracretak



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Doriath, First Meetings, Gen, Nature Magic, rivers that probably want to eat you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 00:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15376419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Of a water-spirit and a sorceress-queen.





	the azure rising deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zdenka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/gifts).



> What lies beneath,  
> beyond the ocean's door?  
> Tranquil is the kiss  
> of _the azure rising deep_ ,  
> sleeping ever more.  
> — '[Naiad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BcrFsnFuUI),' Tarja
> 
> Happy Everywoman, Zdenka! Your Goldberry & Melian prompts were amazing, I hope you enjoy this :D

In the beginning the world was very young, but Goldberry did not feel very young at all.

It was new, though. That much was very certain, and the more of it she saw the more Goldberry thought that she liked this world, could stay in it forever. Goldberry did not think she took a long time to decide this, but by the time she had - by the time she had puzzled out that she had only water for her insides - there were other things in the world.

Goldberry was much less sure she liked sharing.

But she remembered the thrill of discovery - of learning that this new world gave her so many new preferences to form - and so she waited, and watched, and floated through the waters and the trees, the rivers and the rains, and then she waited some more.

She catalogued her favourites. The ones who sang and the ones who walked, the ones who flew and the ones who plucked fish and frogs from the rivers and never knew that she would drag the waters to them, sometimes. The world was very malleable when it was young, after all. The water could go wherever it liked, which, of course, was wherever Goldberry went.

Usually, the rivers followed the one with the nightingales. Goldberry wouldn't learn the birds' names for a very long time - they were such strange dry things, but they were cloaked in shadow and silver like their mistress, and Goldberry did know her for something strange and same.

Goldberry thought that she, perhaps, could share: she sang quite like the waters, a special sort of spell, and she thought long on the sort of gift to give in introduction. During that time she got used to keeping her head and arms out of the water, and she decided that she liked that as well. Perhaps the walking ones had a good idea. She added that to the things she had to consider.

But it happened that Goldberry in her turn was the first one to receive a gift from the sorceress - for by the time that came to pass Goldberry had seen the woman's magic firsthand a number of times over. She knelt on the banks of one of Goldberry's rivers, where dark mud would not show on her deep black gown, and placed in the water a growing thing, too small for a tree and too pink to be grass.

Goldberry ate it. Her teeth were too sharp to do anything else, and she did not yet know words for thanks.

The thing felt like a star in her stomach, a star with long thin roots that spread out beyond the confines of her body and down the river, down. She learned other words from it, though. She learned _flowers_ and she learned _water lily_ and she learned _Melian_ and she learned _hello_ , and she thought that this, too, was a beginning.

 

**

 

After this, Goldberry was preoccupied with others for quite some time, or, at least, it seemed to her that a great amount of time must have passed because of the sheer number of living things she met before she saw Melian again. She saw men and sprites, the fleeting and the fey, and the world around her moved onward because the rivers became more and more reluctant to turn. She had to hurry to set them all in their proper paths, so she could go anywhere she wished after the earth was too set in its ways.

Still throughout all those times she smiled when the nightingales sang, and all the waters sang back in reply, and the water lily that she ate spread its children through all the rivers. Goldberry had flowers in her hair and memory in her heart, and she was content.

When she thought of Melian often it was with fondness, or a hint of uncertainty: mortal she certainly was not, but Goldberry did not think that time was quite the same for her, anyway.

(Time, much like solidity, confused her. Nothing she had eaten had helped her understand either of those things, and she thought she might ask the sorceress about them when next she saw her.)

When Goldberry finally looked for Melian, she found her behind a tangle of spellwork so intricate that Goldberry was not sure at first that she would be able to pass through. She swam to the barrier anyway, nudged it with a curious hand. It bent around her, and though Goldberry did not know why, she took it as a welcome.

There were rivers beyond the spellwork, and they tasted familiar. Goldberry knew then that the barrier was not for her, and that there were things beyond it that would fight her for the sorceress-queen. The thought aroused a strange feeling in her heart, one that felt familiar.

Goldberry remembered then that she did not like sharing, much.

Fortunately the queen was close by. Goldberry checked the water lilies in her hair, wishing to remind Melian that she remembered her gift of friendship, and tried to remember the words of the dry ones that she had learned in the time since she first saw them.

She emerged onto the bank by Melian carefully, wishing not to startle her. In a voice that she had not heard herself use before, she said, "Hello. Will you teach me to sing like you?"

When the sorceress smiled back, she had very sharp teeth too, and Goldberry knew she had made the right choice.


End file.
